Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Microsoft Admits Vista Mistakes - Then Passes the Buck!

Wow, despite legends of people downgrading from Vista to XP, and despite legends of business's still refusing to upgrade from XP to Vista because of it's many problems, Microsoft is now not only admitting that it made huge mistakes with Vista, but is still insisting that there is absolutely wrong or nothing to worry about. Vista, despite over a year of frustrations with compatibility, speed and other annoying quirks, is now suddenly and magically all fine now, or so Microsoft assures us.

Is it true that there is suddenly no reason to worry about all of Vista's many problems? Could this be because Microsoft has now addressed and fixed all of them? No, it's because Microsoft, after freely admitting that not only did they screw up Vista, their partner's and customers, Vista is now o.k., because they are simply and finally fed up with all of the negative press and they are going to counter it with a new and massive ad campaign!

Yes, it's truly amazing that, after admitting that they screwed up Vista, now, all of a sudden, all Vista's problems are not really Microsoft's fault, but rather it's the fault of all of that bad press and that goes especially for a certain very big and noisy competitor (Apple and it's PC vs Mac ads).

To counter Vista's, 'noisy competitor,' and all of the other negative press, Microsoft new Vista ad campaign will cost upward of $300,000,000 dollars to help convince us that Vista really is suddenly an o.k. system. Yes, with enough money, I guess that anyone can do pretty much anything - like convincing us that black is really white, up is really down, good is really evil and that a crappy operating system, is now - all of a sudden - a really great OS!

Personally, I can't see how Microsoft can admit that it made big mistakes with Vista and then, all of a sudden, simply shift most of the blame for Vista on reporters, bloggers, it's suffering users and that big 'noisy competitor.' No, they can't have it both ways. As a C/Net blog pointed out:

"...... Microsoft made its bed by over-promising for six years and then delivering an OS that forced a lot of uncomfortable decisions. Marketing isn't going to clean this mess up. The horny one really isn't sure what is, frankly, but the "Get a Mac" ads aren't responsible for businesses choosing to stick with XP. Microsoft is."

Yes, in the end, Microsoft is going to need do do a lot more than spend buckets of money on a ad campaign. No, they are going to have to do what Apple did - start from scratch and build a totally new and modern OS from the ground up. I can understand the desire to give Windows backward compatibility, but to truly go forward Microsoft will have to let go of the past. No ad campaign is going to convince people that a loser of an OS is really a winner! That huge Vista campaign isn't going to be worth a cent without real change.

Personally, I could be wrong, but I don't think that change is coming anytime soon, at least not until the present leadership changes their thinking, or better yet, changes over the old leadership to a newer, younger and more capable one.